


Heaving

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-06 05:36:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14050038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: SQ Prompt: After being tortured by Greg, Regina actually suffers from being tortured (instead of how the writers totally ignored it.) Emma notices and takes care of her while being on the ship to neverland. Asked by anon via tumblr





	Heaving

The moment the Jolly Roger left Storybrooke’s deck Regina felt her legs almost giving away; the horrible headache she had been suffering ever since the torture doubling its efforts on making her faint. The town’s magical atmosphere had helped her while running and stopping the trigger; the sheer terror at first of losing what had become a safe place for her mixed with the sudden acceptance that she was about to die had kept the pins and needles biting into her flesh at bay. The sudden change with Neverland’s sea, however, was too much and as she felt another kind of magic -older, richer, darker- crawl into her body she needed to swallow the bile that kept on mounting on the back of her throat.

Jittery, she hugged her midriff while keeping her most regal façade up. The dark waters at both sides of the ship felt like closing on her the moment she tried to lose herself on them and Henry’s face made her wince knowing very well she was in no shape to fight or liberate her son. Hers. No one else’s.

The last thought made her back bend under the idea of not being able to really free her little prince. Almost heaving now, she was momentarily distracted by the feeling of wood beneath her finders from where her hands had reached to the tall-ish rails that hugged the deck of the _Jolly Roger_ as the first drops  of rain began to fall; painting darker spots that were quickly replaced with the ones her vision kept on producing as she tried to focus on something else than the growing feeling of absence on the pit of her stomach.

“Regina?”

The question was almost drowned by the rush of blood flow that seemed to keep on congregating on her ears, her tongue dry by the time she managed to turn and look at no other but Emma Swan. The blonde’s own face was slightly green, red rimming her eyes in a way that made Regina think of how her own seemed to itch every time she blinked. That alone made the former queen reassure herself. If that was how the other woman looked perhaps everything would be better after…

“Regina!”

This time the voice was slightly raised over the thickening rain, worry marring the features of the newly discovered savior in a way that made the brunette almost smile. If it weren’t, she realized with a start, that she didn’t quite seem able to do anything else but try her worst to keep standing.

She didn’t give Emma a third opportunity to call for her. Eyes almost closing, she felt her hands tremble as she muttered in a cracklier voice than she would have thought possible a single word. “Water.”

For every time she had considered the other woman dumb or slow, Emma’s arms were around her in a second, turning her face and telling something to someone Regina didn’t manage to know who it was. Snow perhaps; that would be the only idiot capable of pretending she was trying to do something.

A part of her considered on moving away from Emma’s arms, the part that still wanted to hate her for everything she had lost ever after the curse had collapsed onto itself. Another one, the one that kept her with her eyelids about to drop, told her that Emma had nodded at her, trusted her when she had asked to die as just Regina and later on had channeled her own magic not even knowing what she was about to do.

Perhaps, her mind whispered to her while she felt her stomach dropping again, the salty scent around her prickling her nose as she tried to breathe, she could just rest. For a moment. For a second.

Not without Henry, she replied inwardly, trying her hardest to mumble something outload as she heard Emma’s voice calling for her a third time; worry on her voice.

“I’m okay.” She finally managed to say; her voice dropping an octave as she closed her eyes and breathed deeply while forcing her stomach to settle while the ship trembled, dark clouds beginning to form above them all. “You can let me go.”

Emma’s chest stilled for a second before trembling softly in a sigh Regina wanted to feel mad about it.

“Open your eyes and I will trust you on that madam mayor.”

It could have been the mixed feelings the use of the title -that one, not the other one- brought with it; it could have been many other things like the spark of something, of magic that felt truly Emma’s beginning to nudge her own, grounding her, what made her open her eyes, not knowing when she had closed them.

The sea’s rumble around them faded slightly as she swallowed, her throat swollen and dry, seeing not only concern on the back of green eyes but something else that burnt hot. Anger perhaps, even if it wasn’t at her.

Just like her nightmare; the thought made her smile slightly, devoid of her usual façade and demeanor as her brain slowly began to switch off. She could even smell blood but nothing felt like coming out of her nose and just as she saw Emma’s right hand coming closer to her face -long fingers never touching but its warmth obvious on against the now freezing temperatures her magic didn’t even shield her from- she began to feel as if her conscience was about to slip.

“Don’t let your mother see me like this.” She muttered before everything fading to black.

“What happened?” Was the question she would later be asked by Emma, the glow on her pupils telling Regina that she already knew the answer.

Which annoyed her, for a reason she truly didn’t understand. She was in front of a woman that existed for the whole purpose of destroying her and still, as she licked her lips and breathed slowly in the tiny room Emma had seemed to find with the water sloshing closer now to them in a dangerous growl that made Regina’s stomach answer accordingly, she couldn’t bring herself to hate her. Not like she had found so easy to do it at first. Or pretend that she did.

“You know it already.” Her voice was clipped, a last resort that she knew that wouldn’t work.

It didn’t.

“I want to know it from you.”

She could have been the Queen her mother would have wanted from her, the type of person that didn’t ask for help, that never once truly let others see her and she would later blame it on the fact half her magic was trying its hardest to keep her awake. But her mother was dead and she, as much as she had half-wished it at one point, wasn’t.

“It hurt.”

And, in that moment, in that small cabin, as Regina spoke, curtly, coldly at times, every bit the regal woman she was despite her growing feelings that she was fooling no one, she realized that she didn’t see the other woman as an enemy. Not anymore.

(The fact that she would later discover the blonde asleep next her by the moment a shy David told them they had arrived at Neverland was another tell. One that she tried her hardest not to think about it as she willed her magic to tickle the other woman awake while pretending to not smile slightly when the younger woman protested.

They would save Henry, she told herself before slowly making her way up to the upper level. And later…

Later.)


End file.
